Join the campaign to release Bahá’í leaders (From Haringey Independent)

Join the campaign to release Bahá’í leaders

12:54pm Friday 3rd September 2010 in Readers' Letters

Bahá’is in Haringey have written to Hornsey and Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone and Tottenham MP David Lammy to ask them to call for the release of seven Bahá’í leaders in Iran.

They are also asking these two MPs to kindly intercede on their behalf to help win the support of the Prime Minister in a campaign to secure the release of their fellow Bahá’ís in Iran.

The seven leaders – Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm – have each been sentenced to 20 years in jail just because they are Bahá’ís.

The local Baha’is are really anxious for their safety and for their families.

Foreign Secretary William Hague has already expressed his concern at the treatment of the Bahá’í leaders.

He said he was "appalled" to hear of the 20-year prison sentence and said it was a "shocking example of the Iranian state’s continued discrimination against the Bahá’ís" and "completely unacceptable".

Authorities held the leaders in ‘temporary’ detention in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran for more than 18 months before submitting them to trial.

One of the Bahá’ís was held in solitary confinement for 175 days and the other six for 105 days.

Iranian law allows authorities to hold prisoners in solitary for a maximum of 20 days.

Each of the two women and five men were allowed to see their lawyers for less than an hour in the run-up to the trial.

Baha’is throughout the UK are inviting others to support their campaign for human rights in Iran and to join in their prayers for the release of the leaders.

Teresa Parsons, secretary, Local Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Haringey